Lost in Daylight Saving's Time

 I do not own a clock to turn back or forward. I do own watches but unwound ones, hiding in drawers. Who needs clocks or watches with Smartphones always handy, and computers also always keeping time? When time changes, I don’t even have to know about it.  My computer makes adjustments for me while I sleep; my iPhone likewise.  I don’t even have to know what hour I’ve lost or gained when Daylight Savings does its tricks. I can go about my daily toil completely innocent.

It’s raining hard today so light did not allude to change, no displaced sun betrayed that noon had moved. My stomach growled too early, but I blamed fickle appetite and rain and mood. 

I’m sure the dogs knew more than I did, but I was otherwise engaged and did not listen.  Feed me, walk me, feed me, walk me, yapping canine dances stir me when they stir me and I feed and walk them off the clock. 

 I must admit I wondered why my U.S. friends woke up so early on a Sunday—all their little green video-camera lights announcing availability to chat. “You’re up early,” I even told my daughter in Atlanta as we were g-chatting. But what is “early” in a timeless time of displaced hours? She had no way of knowing I was lost.

Paula called from Germany, but we did not mention time. My sister called from Norway and did mention time but not the change. “It’s 1:20," she even announced to me proclaiming she was hungry and had to go. I’d eaten long before an early lunch or late breakfast—and acknowledged even then about how weird time felt. I blamed it on Sunday and the collapse of routine. Time on Sunday is always weird, necessarily.   

The Greeks distinguish the difference between Chronos Time and Chairos Time.  Chronos is the time one measures and Chairos measureless.  It’s been said (I don’t recall by whom) that the more one lives in Chairos Time, the less one ages. I like that thought! Sundays are meant to be spent in Chairos Time, so maybe that’s why Daylight’s Savings Time always happens on a Sunday. The fickle hour can rise or fall and we won’t notice much.

The other night, driving in the rain back from Fano with my friends, Vania played a similar trick on me with week days.  She claimed it is important to know the day of one’s birth.  If born on a Monday, Monday becomes one’s Sunday. If born—as I was—on a Wednesday, then Wednesday becomes one’s Sunday. Every day of the week is ruled by a different planet and brings a different energy. The Biblical imperative that one rest on the 7^th day should be coordinated with the day of the week on which one was born. If my Wednesday is my Sunday, then my Sunday is my…(this is too much for me, I swear!)…Thursday—Thor’s Day, bringing aggressive Norse energy.  Sunday should not, therefore, be my day of rest. "And on the 7th Day She Rested," should be Wednesday. The Italian calendar may help me out a little. Sunday is not the first day of the week, but the last, so what does that mean about my Wednesday and my Thursday?  This has something to do with Day Light’s Savings Time, but I don't know what.

Obviously, the fact that I am writing about all this means that I am onto something. The girl I tutor in English—Erla—spilled the beans. She came at three o’clock rather than four, admitting she did not trust me to know what time it was.  I was fixing a late lunch, which soon became early dinner, after she’d come and gone, almost breaking my spell of  timelessness. “Oh that’s why everything is weird,” I remarked to her, but as most people know, things are always weird to me.

Knowing about this fickle hour is no help in placing me in time, and maybe that’s why we do it—manipulate the light this way--to stay un-time-bound. I suppose there was no way of doing it in the days of sundials—the shadow fell where it fell and was somehow true.  Clock hands must have invited manipulation—the mechanism runs down, the battery dies, resetting requires always a certain approximation. Digital time is preparing us for some new orientation. Time after time.  Moments that last a second or forever depending on how you feel. It is half past five in the afternoon as I write this, and already nightfall. If I shut down the computer, let my iPhone die and fall asleep now, surely some Rip Van Winkle day the dogs will wake me and I will carry on with whatever’s left here for me to do.